From Huston Smith's The World's Religions

Buddha: "The Awakened One" or "The Enlightened One" (budh means "to wake up" or "to know"). When people came to Buddha asking "Who are you? What are you? Are you a god? Are you an angel? Are you a saint?" he answered "No" to all these questions. "Then what are you?" He answered, "I am awake."

Buddhism is not a religion of beliefs; it is a "practice," a "way."

Boddhisattva: "one whose essence (sattva) is perfected wisdom (bodhi)-- a being who, having reached the brink of bliss voluntarily returns to the world to aid others in their journey. In China, the best-loved of all boddhisattvas is Kuan Yin: "she incarnates on earth the celestial principle of which compassion or mercy is the defining feature."  Manjusri is the Boddhisattva of Discernment.

Rebirth in Buddhism stems from tanha (the desire to be a separate self)- a more psychological interpretation than the idea of karma (consequences of actions) in Hinduism.

MONKEY: Monkey is an abbreviated version of Journey to the West, by Wu Ch'eng-En, 16^th Century CE, in vernacular Chinese). Tripitika is a historical monk who lived in the 7^th C. CE.

READING QUESTIONS

1. What characterizes each of the four major travelers (Tripitika, Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy)? Consider ways of thinking, intentions, behavior, reactions. Each is some aspect of a human being.

2. What is the relationship between the four? Consider how they interact in fruitful and not-so-fruitful ways.

3. What does the challenge in each episode help them discover (learn)? How do they grow as a result?

4. How is the view of human nature in this work different from the view of human nature presented in The Odyssey? Consider whether Tripitika, Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy stay the same; whether they act badly, making pledges to reform, then lapse, then renew their pledges.

5. What do the rivers represent?

6. Compare how good and evil are represented in this work with the way they are represented in The Odyssey and The Ramayana: What kind of behavior is presented as evil? Are the evil characters all evil or a mixture? Is change possible? If change is possible, what fosters such change?

7. What does it mean that we don't get to read the scriptures at the end of the story?